Views and analysis of Chinese politics and policy from inside China, outside the Beijing and Shanghai beltways

Friday, 24 February 2017

Xi Jinping Doesn’t Want China To Rule The World, But He Wants More Consideration

There’s a lot being made about a speech China’s President Xi
Jinping gave earlier this month—an important address at a noteworthy meeting on
national security. According to at least one
interpretation, Xi’s statements were worth a blazing headline: “Chinese
president Xi Jinping has vowed to lead the “new world order.”

How unfortunate that’s how Xi’s words were rendered. Not for
the first or fifth time, Xi’s meaning is being misconstrued--at least by people
writing certain headlines.

To the credit of the writer of the article itself, he uses
“guides” in his translation of what Xi purportedly said when he discusses the
actual statements, though the tone of the piece as a whole is rendered as
Beijing looking to take advantage of the United States, seeking to reshape
global affairs. Graham Webster of Yale University’s Paul Tsai China Law Center does
a nice job (perhaps off the original exchanges on Twitter) noting that
there’s nothing in Xi’s speech to suggest China wants to subvert or suddenly restructure
the existing international order.

There’s a lesson here. Nuance matters a great deal in
official statements in China, and Chinese leaders (and officials generally) are
nothing if not nuanced in the words they use. Words are actions in Chinese
politics; cadres here at all levels read pronouncements with care and caution
lest they stray from the established Party line. It does no one much good to
hype what Xi and his comrades say (to be kind), simply to scare a readership or
drive traffic to a website. The stakes are too high to be stupid.

But back to the meaning of what Xi said, because what Xi seems to be doing here (it does no one
any good to be categorical either) in his address is actually quite
significant, even if it’s not world-changing in the ways that some are
portraying it.

For others advising or making policy here, Xi’s words imply
a China that will no longer free-ride on decisions made by other members of the
G8 (for example, not opposing the invasion of Iraq but eager to criticize it
afterwards, all the while reaping economic benefits from the war—transshipment
fees collected on materials pausing at Chinese airports, oil price
speculation). Xi expects that Beijing will be treated as a partner, instead of
just another player, that it aspires to help mold the international order as it
enters a new era. That was Xi
at Davos and that’s Xi here.

No one can know at this stage how all that will play out;
where Xi will end up after Beijing seeks to possibly move into policy space
that Washington had been occupying previously and runs into opposition here and
abroad, as well as the usual obstacles associated with global matters. And the
Chinese political culture isn’t about equality but hierarchy, so there will be
expectations by some here that what China wants to have happens, deserves to
occur or else. In Chinese politics, leaning towards a view doesn't mean deciding that view wins at the end of the day.

At this point at least, with his recent speeches, Xi seems
to be telegraphing to Chinese officials—and others who are listening and
reading with some care—that he’s very willing to move
beyond even his predecessor in throwing over Deng’s concept of China being
comfortable just to be in the same room, and making sure that Beijing is not
only at the table, but being served. Xi isn’t interested in setting the
building ablaze, and so those alleging otherwise need to stop crying fire when
the only smoke to be seen is what they themselves are spreading.